


Tales Of The Little White Guardian

by MaximEve



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Crushes, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, it will go slow but fast because we dont slow burn we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 03:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21219749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximEve/pseuds/MaximEve
Summary: What happens when you're a new Guardian, you're a Hunter, and also you're really fucking short? Like, shorter than basically everyone in the Tower? This happens. Eve is a new Guardian, a Hunter, and he's really fucking short, and the Vanguard's protective instincts activate all at once. In a twist of fate, Cayde himself gets his wish of going back to the battlefield to make sure the new baby doesn't get himself killed already, and he can never be happier: sounds like an easy job after all, right? Except this "baby" is a nasty-ass sniper who, quite frankly, makes carpets out of anyone without a strong enough head. Thus, Cayde realizes that this lil' guy is actually extremely cool, and he's absolutely unneeded. Cue subsequent crushing.A bit of a retelling of Destiny 1, but we get Cayde a small boyfriend in the process.





	Tales Of The Little White Guardian

“Guardian?”

Your eyes crack open and the light of the sky blinds you. It’s annoying, so you close them again. The voice, however, insists.

“Guardian, is this you?”

You decide that you should probably keep your eyes open, and as you do, you find before them a strange little machine, floating in front of your face, a single eye staring you up and down. You look down at your (gloved) hands. Your entire body feels stiff and, frankly, you feel like you’ve had the worst hangover of your life. The little machine is the voice you heard, and it’s still chattering.

“Well… I didn’t expect you to be so…” You look up at the little machine, pretty sure you were glaring at it. “… small…?”

“Oh, come on,” you groan, rubbing your face, “you really gotta wake me up like that? Just to tell me I’m short?”

The little machine quickly looks flustered, or at least, it seems to be. It’s a machine. It doesn’t really have a face that can look flustered. “Oh, s-sorry, it’s just… you know there’s lots of Guardians and they’re all pretty big sometimes so I just thought…”

“You thought… I’d be taller?” You finish the sentence, clearly annoyed. The little machine shakes his head-body, gathering itself. “Well, okay, sorry, that was a bad start. But I really am glad I found you. I’ve been looking for you for so long. I’m a Ghost. Or rather, your Ghost. And I didn’t exactly wake you up as much as I brought you back from being dead for a long, long time.”

That entire sentence raised a lot of questions in your head, but you’re both interrupted by a long, loud shriek in the distance. It sounds like an animal. A really angry one, at that. Ghost looks at the sea of rusted cars behind him, and then back at you. “Listen, we need to go. This is Fallen territory. It’s not safe here.”

You look down yourself one last time. You’re wearing what looks like some sort of military setup, but… it feels a bit big for you. And also, it looks straight up like something out of a sci-fi apocalypse movie. Definitely weird. Your Ghost chirps at you once more. “Sorry about that… I think you already know that I was expecting someone a bit… bigger. Hehehe.”

You give him a half-assed glare, because frankly, you were never really that mad to begin with, and also this little machine calling himself Ghost was too cute to stay mad at. “Okay, well… where do we go?” you ask, and Ghost dematerializes, making you nervous for a second. Then his voice sounds strong in your head. “Don’t worry, I’m here. And also, don’t worry again, because I’ll show you were to go.

Ghost leads you into the nearby building, rusted and decaying, of what he called a “Cosmodrome”. There’re noises all around you as you rise up in the building, delving into the darkness of the abandoned rooms. Your Ghost, a trusty flashlight, guides you to what seems like a firearm: a rifle, it seems. A sniper rifle. You take hold of it, and it feels… right, in your hands. Like it’s meant to be there.

Your ghost looks at you, worriedly. “Darn, is that really all there is? I feel like this might be a little too… little, for what’s going on.”

You decidedly load a shot into the rifle, looking at Ghost. “Don’t worry. I think I’ve got this.” Your little smirk of confidence seems to be contagious, and Ghost seems relieved.

You delve deeper into the Cosmodrome, and finally, you meet those things that were following you: the Fallen. Despite the initial shock, you’re quick to draw and even quicker to take the shot: the few Fallen that don’t get close to you never get the chance to, and are instead rewarded a single bullet to the head. Those who do get close get a knife to the head instead of a bullet (yes, apparently you had a knife. How handy!). It’s like you were born to do this, loading one shot after another and hitting the bullseye. “Well, I stand corrected on what I said before. You definitely got this” Ghost chirps contentedly, and you can’t help but chuckle back.

You finally reach what your Ghost has been looking for: a ship. Left hanging in an empty room, left as some sort of weird trophy, but it’s there, and it seems intact. But the shrieks are still behind you. Your Ghost looks at the tunnel you just left, and then back at you. “I can check and fix the ship up. But it’ll take time. Can you handle them?”

You smile at him, with an air of challenge, and you load one more shot into the rifle. “I think you know the answer.” Ghost rolls his single eye this time, but seems happy with your reply. “You really like doing that, don’t you? Just make sure to back up your boastings with actual cool achievements.” And with that, Ghost disappears into the ship, and you’re left as the Fallen come for you. But you don’t just stand there like a pretty doll.

You look around quickly, and find some handholds. You climb on them, agile and quick, and make a jump on top of the ship you just found, nestling in there and reading your rifle. With a clear vision of all the entrances, you’re ready.

None of the Fallen are, however.

With mechanical speed, you shoot and load and shoot and load again. They don’t come quickly enough to be able to overpower you, and instead you just see the pile of corpses starting to obstruct the entrances. Then the big one comes: all huge and intimidating and angry. Too bad that size doesn’t matter when you’ve got his head under the crosshair.

One shot makes him stagger, and you’re surprised that for once, an enemy doesn’t instantly die from a headshot. But he takes too long to recover, and you load another. Second headshot, and he staggers even more. He’s struggling, a lot. He can’t find his balance again. You load another shot.

“I almost feel bad.”

Third headshot, and this time, there’s no struggling, no staggering. He just falls, like the rest, and dies, just like the rest.

“Well, I guess I was worried for nothing. Watch your footing.” The ship suddenly vibrates violently, and it starts moving. It shakes off the cables, and for a moment, it seems like it’ll fall on the ground, with you on top, struggling to keep balance. Instead, it turns on completely, hovering there like a good ship. “Whoa” you breathe, amazed. It felt like riding the world’s biggest skateboard. “I’ll take you in,” you Ghost says, and for a moment, you see double, your body feeling light. You see your hands becoming glimmering dust for a second, before you’re back to being fully yourself, but what looks like the inside of the ship you were just standing on.

“Good job out there. I have a feeling we’ll do great things” the voice of your Ghost still resonates in your head, but also throughout the whole ship. You smile as you place a hand on the control. “Keep up the compliments and maybe I’ll forgive you for calling me short.”

“I thought you were over that!” Your Ghost cries out, saddened. You can only giggle at his reaction, before the ship finally takes off into the sky, leaving behind the abandoned facility and all the creatures it inhabits… for now.

“Well, if you’re done chipping away at my good will,” Ghost remarks, half-heartedly annoyed “I’ll take you to The City.”

“The City?” You parrot, looking outside. The ship is going very quickly: in a few seconds you already can’t see the place you left, and are instead flying over a sea of stormy clouds.

“Yeah, The City. The Last City. The only one that remained after The Traveler almost died.” Ghost speaks of things matter-of-factly, like you’ve always known them. But in truth, you really don’t.

“You keep saying things, but like… I don’t really know what they mean. What’s a traveler?”

“The Traveler, is what allowed me to exist, and consequently, what allowed me to bring you back to life,” Ghost corrects you, “and don’t worry: you’ll get to speak with other Guardians who can explain better than I can.”

As he says that, the clouds part, and you’re left with the view of a huge city, bustling with activity, bathing in the light of the sunset. In the distance, you see it: a huge planet, hovering just over it, like a moon. It just stays there, motionless, watching over everyone below it. You can already guess that that must be the Traveler.

“Welcome to the last safe City. Took centuries to build, and will go down in a second. Our job is to protect it, Guardian. And that Tower over there is where other Guardians gather. I did mention you’re not the only Guardian, right?”

You hear the word ‘mention’, and you snap back from your wonder at the place below your ship. You look at Ghost, or rather, at where you think Ghost is. “Speaking of mentioning… I never said my name.”

“Oh.” Ghost admits, a bit embarrassed. “Sorry, it was… a busy moment.”

You chuckle. “Yeah, you can say that again. The name’s Eve, though. Thanks for bringing me back to life, Ghostie!”

“Okay I love your name but please don’t call me that.” You two finally descend upon what is apparently called the Tower.

As soon as you’re on what appear to be a plaza, you’re met with weird looks. Not really malicious, but all the other Guardians around you (who are also a lot taller than you) do tend to eye you as they pass by- and since there’s a lot of them, that happens a lot too. You could almost ignore it. It could’ve just been your face and hair. You’re most definitely human, but with pure white hair tied in a little ponytail, skin so pale you looked dead, and eyes red like blood you definitely stand out. But you know what’s actually happening.

“I told you they tend to be big” Ghost’s voice remarks in your head. You’re tempted to summon him only to flick it in the eye, but instead you simply snark back at him. “You’re not helping.”

Ghost guides you through the Tower, towards what he calls the Vanguard. As you walk, ignoring the stares, you take notice of how there’s weird people mixed between normal humans: there’s people with skin colors that are definitely not something cause by the Sun, blue and green and red tones clashing with all their other equally unnaturally colored features. And then there’s robots. Like, actual robots walking around, and they look awesome but also, you’re very intimidated by them because most of them look really angry. Ghost reassures you that it’s just a bad case of generalized thug face and that most of them are pretty nice, he thinks. You’re not reassured at all.

Then you finally reach a big room with a really big table in the middle. Said table is occupied by only three people, and they all turn their heads up towards you as you step in. There’s a woman, a big blue bald man, and also a blue robot with a hood and a cape. And the stare they give you is literally the most the embarrassing thing you can get.

You soon learn their names: Ikora is the woman, Zavala is the man, and Cayde-6 (but he says to just call him Cayde) is the robot. Even as your Ghost makes the presentations and explains the situation, they still look at you incredulously. Especially at the part where you “apparently” (even though it happened) took out a whole horde of Fallen plus a Captain by yourself. With a sniper rifle. They seem taken aback by that.

“I don’t mean to sound rude, but… I never really knew the Traveler choose children as Guardians.” The woman named Ikora is perplexed at you. You can see she’s not really being mean, and she’s just worried, kinda like a mom. Ew, you think, let’s not start calling every person we meet a mom.

“Hey, it’s not like size matters when you’re a Hunter. Y’all know Ghosts don’t lie about stuff like this: kid’s probably a real god-shot.” The robot named Cayde remarks gleefully. He seems the least concerned about your appearance but you also get the feeling that this is the guy most likely to treat you like a kid. At least he seems funny and charming though, so you give him that.

“Even so, I hardly doubt he will be able to handle himself alone against more difficult enemies,” the man named Zavala says. He seems like the one who’s strict, and the one more outwardly concerned about your situation. He’s probably going to be the one to just tell you ‘no’ everytime you have a job to do because he considers you too weak and fragile. “The Ghost may not lie, but we don’t know if it was all just a big case of good luck or not.”

At that point, you felt pretty much ignored, so you raise your hand to get a turn, except you don’t wait to get permission and just speak over them because you have the feeling they’re just going to talk between the three of them and completely exclude you. “Uh, just so you all know… I’m pretty sure I’m like, twenty-one, at least, so it would be nice if you didn’t treat me like a kid?”

They all turn to look at you, and for a second you think that this is it, you’ve completely fucked over your position as a Guardian by disrespecting the highest authority in their system, you’re gonna get kicked out and discharged with dishonor or whatever the fuck, but thankfully, you’re just paranoid.

Ikora clears her throat to settle the atmosphere. “Yes, it is clear we cannot judge you simply because of… well. Looks” she says, almost apologetically.

“It’s alright, you’re not the first ones.” You shoot a glance at your Ghost, and he notices because he already starts getting flustered again. “I-I thought you were over that…!” he repeats the same thing he said before, out of other things to say. Cayde fails to hide a laugh with his hand and snorts pretty loudly. Zavala gives him a look that seems to say he’s used to this kind of thing but at the same time he’s ready to throw Cayde off the Tower, and then looks back at you.

“Regardless of that, you are a Guardian. We must be sure that are fit for the trials ahead. For now, however, your Ghost was clear: you need a warp drive for your ship. Go search for Amanda Holliday: she’ll tell you what can be done about it. We need you to be able to move freely throughout planets; having you stuck on Earth will do little good.”

“I can vouch for her, Hunter. Just tell her and she’ll fix your ship up and make it even better. Well, she can’t do miracles, but. You know. She comes close to it. With ships at least.” Cayde makes finger guns at you as a way to reassure you, and you get the feeling that he’s taken a liking to you. You don’t know whether to be happy of that or not, but for now, you simply look at all three Vanguards in the eyes and nod in affirmation, before excusing yourself and running off to this fabled Amanda who will allegedly be able to fix your ship with anything it might need.

And just as you’re out of sight, the Vanguard starts bickering again.

“I’ll have you both know that I absolutely refuse to let a Guardian looking like a child onto the battlefield.” Zavala’s tone is firm, already trying to assert his position. Cayde, and to a lesser extent, Ikora, weren’t that surprised.

“We know, big guy, we know. I mean, I can’t blame ya, he looks like he could be Ikora’s son or something. Like, I don’t think even I am comfortable knowing he’s out there risking his life, even with his Ghost and all that jazz.” Cayde gestures at where you just exited with his thumb, looking back to Zavala and Ikora. “But, you know, he seems pretty reliable. Like, come on you two, he’s a Guardian. Okay, Ghosts can make bad calls, but I really don’t feel like we gotta worry on this one, you know? If anything, he seems like he can make things interesting. Stay true to being fun-sized.”

“First off, we are not calling him fun-sized, Cayde. I don’t think I have to tell you how disrespectful it is.” Ikora stares daggers at Cayde, who raises his hands as if being held at gunpoint. “Secondly… it is true he is a Guardian. And the fact that he survived being cornered with Fallen might be a sign he’s more capable than his height would imply.” She places a finger on her chin in thought. “I cannot hide my worry, however… Something should be done to ensure that we can trust him to not die on his first serious mission. Light knows we don’t need Guardians dying their final death the moment they are waken up.”

Zavala sighed resigned. “As much as I don’t really like our sudden desire to pamper a Guardian like this… we might think about sending someone with him on his next mission. Ensure his safety, as well as a witness to his alleged skills with a rifle.”

“I could go.” Cayde is quick to volunteer himself. “I mean, he is also a Hunter and I’m the Hunter Vanguard so I feel like it would only make the most sense if I helped-“

“Cayde, we already talked about you not going on missions all willy-nilly like this” Ikora reprimanded him. “You are a Vanguard, and you have duties. We can’t just send you on the battlefield like any other soldier.”

“Come on~, you two, just one mission? Just one? And who better than me, a skilled Guardian, could go with the kid as they bodyguard-slash-examiner? No one, that’s who. You know you can trust me to get the job done, right? Right?” Cayde is quite literally pleading them at this point, his desperate desire to get out of the Tower apparent to both of the other two.

Zavala sighed again, this time more of a groan of annoyance. “There are definitely people more suited for a job like this… but at the same time, I can’t argue that you’re the one he’d be most safe with. And I absolutely resent you for that.”

Cayde giggled at his response, enjoying that stroke to his ego, and then made the best puppy eyes his robotic face could to Ikora, who stared at him for a moment longer before rolling her eyes like the exasperated mother she is. “One mission, Cayde. One. Keep him safe and check their prowess. And for the love of the Traveler, stop behaving like you’re a kid who needs permission to do things.”

“Even if that is your most accurate description,” Zavala added sourly. Cayde, on the other hand, completely ignored him and just unashamedly fist-pumped the air in triumph, and without even looking at the other two already set out to follow you. Then he apparently remembered that yes, there were other people with him that were talking with him, and turned back one last time. “Cross my heart y’all, I’m gonna be the best babysitter this Tower’s ever seen!” 

Cayde then ran off in a hurry, leaving Ikora and Zavala wallowing in the regrets of their decision. Ikora especially pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

“He’s taller than that Guardian by almost a full foot and he’s still the one who’s more like a kid…”

**Author's Note:**

> This is me trying to cope with Cayde's death a year after Forsaken, as I finally delve into Destiny for real. I already bought Destiny 2. Just gotta rush D1 first, and enjoy him being alive and quirky in the process.
> 
> Also I have no idea if this will continue or not. Im putting it as multiple chapters in hope it does.


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